Category Archives: Cupcake Recipes & Ideas

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NEW Russian Pastry Tube Set! The set contains tips #3, #5, #7, #10, #29 and #33. These do not duplicate our other offerings. Use to pipe quick and easy flower designs on cakes, cupcakes and cookies! BUY NOW

Learn how to use these tips below!

HOW TO USE RUSSIAN PASTRY TIPS

Traditional buttercream flowers require a high level of skill and can take years to perfect, but Russian piping tips make the buttercream blooms much easier to achieve.

BEFORE YOU PIPE: TIPS FOR SUCCESS

1. USE A STIFF BUTTERCREAM FROSTING.

Both Swiss meringue and American buttercream work. You’ll just need to work a little quicker with a meringue-based buttercream, since it softens up faster

2. PIPE RIGHT AWAY OR STORE THEM RIGHT.

You can pipe flowers directly onto a cake or cupcakes, but if you want to make your flowers in advance, pipe them onto small pieces of parchment paper. Store them in the freezer until you’re ready to decorate.

3. KEEP ‘EM CLEAN!

Keep the tip of the nozzle on your Russian piping tips as clean as possible. Extra bits of buttercream will cause your flowers to lose their shape.

4. MAKE SMOOTH BUTTERCREAM.

Make sure your buttercream is perfectly smooth before filling your bag. The little openings on these piping tips can be very unforgiving! Keep a toothpick or skewer nearby to clear away any butter clumps.

5. HELP THEM STICK.

Flowers can be piped onto an unfinished cake or on top of a crumb coat. If you’re using a crusting buttercream, give the cake a quick spritz with water before you pipe to help your flowers stick.

STEP 1. Fit a large piping bag with a Russian piping tip – does not require a coupler, just place your tip in the bag and trim the tip of the bag to fit. Fill the bag with buttercream and apply firm pressure to the bag until buttercream starts poking through all the openings. Wipe the tip of the nozzle clean before beginning your design.

STEP 2. Hold the flat end of the tip just above the surface you want to pipe. Apply steady pressure to the piping bag while pulling straight up.

STEP 3. Release pressure when you’re 3/4 of the way done with your petal. Continue to pull the piping bag up until the buttercream separates from the tip. Keep all of your movements slow and steady to keep the petals and centers from smushing together.

STEP 4. Continue piping more flowers to fill in the rest of the area you’re decorating, repeating the piping process described in Step 2. Cluster flowers as closely together as possible to avoid letting the cake or crumb-coat below show through. Position the nozzle so that the side edge just touches the petals of the flower before.

STEP 5. Complete your arrangement by adding simple leaves. Shown is size 366 leaf tip, but you can achieve the same look by cutting a V-shaped notch into the tip of a piping bag. Fill a piping bag fitted with the leaf tip with green buttercream. Hold the bag less than 1/4 inch above where you want the leaf to be. Position the tip so that it looks like a little mouth about to gobble up one of your buttercream flowers. Apply pressure to the bag. Once the buttercream makes contact with the surface piping, release pressure and pull the bag away. Repeat to fill in any empty spaces.

1. Little Blue Flower Cupcakes – These cupcakes are full of color and cheer, plus they are super easy! Just bake your favorite cupcake recipe in these Flower Foil Cupcake Liners and decorate with bright purple buttercream frosting topped with a Small Blue Royal Icing Flower!

5. DIY Spring Flower Sugar Cubes – Royal Icing Flower topped sugar cubes…drop one in and watch the flower float to the top as sugar cube melts. It will brighten your morning or put a smile on your guest’s face at your next brunch. Get the tutorial HERE.

6. Butterfly Cookies – Learn how to make and decorate butterfly cookies using the marbling and wet-on-wet icing techniques. Get the tutorial HERE.

7. Bright Daisy Treats – An easy way to brighten up any store bought treat is to top them with our Bright Sugar Daisies! Decorating idea from Lucks.com.

9. Hard Candy Lollipops With Edible Flowers – Update this old-fashioned favorite with edible flowers for a fresh spring treat. You can flavor to suit your taste , but you will need clear lollipops to showcase the flowers. Make sure you have an accurate candy thermometer for this recipe because the sugar temperature is critical! Get the tutorial HERE.

Bring simple, fresh flower recipes to your kitchen table! Edible flowers are abundant and easy to cook with, but are often overlooked as being intimidating or too fancy. Exquisite candied edible flowers are an ancient delicacy. They make an elegant garnish for your cakes, chocolates and pastries. And are the perfect addition to your Spring treats!

We think these quick and easy cherry cookies that are loaded with chocolate chips would make a great treat for your sweetheart! While you may not be fond of using boxed mixes, you will love the convenience and cake batter taste of these cookies.

Add an extra punch of flavor and style to your holiday cupcakes with Champagne Extract! These champagne cupcakes are the perfect addition to your holiday parties! This amazing extract adds the elegant flavor of champagne to your baked goods, confectionery products, beverages and ice creams. Very concentrated in flavor, just one teaspoon of this champagne extract will flavor your typical cake or cookie recipe. Try replacing vanilla extract with champagne for a slightly more adult taste in cakes and icings.

Halloween is just around the corner (EEK!) and we have been sooo busy wrapping up our Holiday Catalogs that we haven’t had much time to blog about Halloween treats 😦 , sooo the rest of this week and next we will be posting easy last minute Halloween treat ideas for you! Stay tuned!